Fwd: [ cacklinggrackle] BushCo buying of reporters ruled a crime

October 1, 2005

So when does he get impeached?

Alobar

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Patrick Crumhorn <patrik

Oct 1, 2005 10:38 AM

[cacklinggrackle] BushCo buying of reporters ruled a crime

grackle <cacklinggrackle >

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics/01educ.html?ei=5094 & en=ed2345e1f9cc06\

db & hp= & ex=1128225600 & adxnnl=1 & partner=homepage & adxnnlx=1128178900-PtyWwYAfvfifZa\

ACTvlG/w

October 1, 2005

Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush

administration violated the law

by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education

policies, by making payments to the

conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public

relations company to analyze

media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government

Accountability Office, said the

administration had disseminated " covert propaganda " in the United

States, in violation of a

statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public

relations campaign had been

known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive

ruling on the legality of the

activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm

of Congress, found that the

administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they

carried the message, " The Bush

administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education. "

The auditors declared: " We see no use for such information except for

partisan political purposes.

Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper

use of appropriated funds. "

The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for

telling Ketchum Inc., a public

relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and

television appearances praising Mr.

Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.

When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism.

At a news conference in

January, Mr. Bush said: " We will not be paying commentators to advance

our agenda. Our agenda ought

to be able to stand on its own two feet. "

But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr.

Williams, saying his

commentaries were " no more than the legitimate dissemination of

information to the public. "

The G.A.O. said the Education Department had no money or authority to

" procure favorable commentary

in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition " in federal law.

The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department

is supposed to report the

violations to the White House and Congress.

In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a

previously undisclosed instance in

which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article.

The article, on the " declining

science literacy of students, " was distributed by the North American

Precis Syndicate and appeared

in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not

informed of the government's role

in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in

promoting science education.

The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by

the Education Department. The

segment, a " video news release " narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan,

said that President Bush's

program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children

" gets an A-plus. "

Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug

benefit last year. In those

segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, " In

Washington, I'm Karen Ryan

reporting. "

The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not

state that they had been prepared

and distributed by the government. The G.A.O. did not say how many

stations carried the reports.

The public relations efforts came to light weeks before Margaret

Spellings became education

secretary in January. Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the secretary,

said on Friday that Ms.

Spellings regarded the efforts as " stupid, wrong and ill-advised. " She

said Ms. Spellings had taken

steps " to ensure these types of missteps don't happen again. "

The investigation by the accountability office was requested by

Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New

Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Mr.

Lautenberg expressed concern

about a section of the report in which investigators said they could

not find records to confirm

that Mr. Williams had performed all the activities for which he billed

the government.

The Education Department said it had paid Ketchum $186,000 for

services performed by Mr. Williams's

company. But it could not provide transcripts of speeches, articles or

records of other services

invoiced by Mr. Williams, the report said.

In March, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said that

federal agencies did not have

to acknowledge their role in producing television news segments if

they were factual. The inspector

general of the Education Department recently reiterated that position.

But the accountability office said on Friday: " The failure of an

agency to identify itself as the

source of a prepackaged news story misleads the viewing public by

encouraging the audience to

believe that the broadcasting news organization developed the

information. The prepackaged news

stories are purposefully designed to be indistinguishable from news

segments broadcast to the

public. When the television viewing public does not know that the

stories they watched on television

news programs about the government were in fact prepared by the

government, the stories are, in this

sense, no longer purely factual. The essential fact of attribution is missing. "

The office said Mr. Williams's work for the government resulted from a

written proposal that he

submitted to the Education Department in March 2003. The department

directed Ketchum to use Mr.

Williams as a regular commentator on Mr. Bush's education policies.

Ketchum had a federal contract

to help publicize those policies, signed by Mr. Bush in 2002.

The Education Department flouted the law by telling Ketchum to use Mr.

Williams to " convey a message

to the public on behalf of the government, without disclosing to the

public that the messengers were

acting on the government's behalf and in return for the payment of

public funds, " the G.A.O. said.

The Education Department spent $38,421 for production and distribution

of the video news release and

$96,850 for the evaluation of newspaper articles and radio and

television programs. Ketchum assigned

a score to each article, indicating how often and favorably it

mentioned features of the new

education law.

Congress tried to clarify the ban on " covert propaganda " in a bill

signed by Mr. Bush in May. The

law says that no federal money may be used to produce or distribute a

news story unless the

government's role is openly acknowledged.

October 2, 2005

I would like to see him get impeached...........Joyce

-

" Alobar " <Alobar

<NOLA_C3_Discussion >;

Saturday, October 01, 2005 1:10 PM

Fwd: [ cacklinggrackle] BushCo buying

of reporters ruled a crime